Songs of the Earth (27 page)

‘No.’

‘Never?’

‘Never. I caught a rabbit once, but I had to let it go. I just couldn’t … you know. Kill it, eat it.’ He shuddered at the memory. The fire-eagle had wanted to feast, but the rabbit’s squeals had scraped at his ears and the thought of hot blood in his mouth, bitter with fear, had made his gorge rise.

‘To truly understand a shape, to feel it in your soul, you must experience all its behaviours. Hunt as it hunts, live as it lives. It’s exhilarating.’

‘I’m not sure I could ever do that. It feels wrong.’

‘That’s because you’re letting yourself think about it as a man. The eagle would not even stop to consider it.’ She squinted up at the height of the sun. ‘Come on. The day’s a-wasting and I’ve not seen all you can do yet.’

‘I’m supposed to have a tutorial with Master Godril this afternoon,’ Gair said.

‘There’s more to learn about the Song than he teaches. He won’t miss you.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m sure. Godril’s a pompous arse. Didn’t you see his expression when you flew up out of the yard? I thought he was going to have a seizure. Would have served him right, too – you’d think he’d discovered the Song, the way he goes on.’ She put on a low, rasping voice that was a remarkably accurate imitation of the sandy-haired Master. ‘“This is illusion! Show me fire!” As if no one but him could have the ability to do it.’

In spite of himself, Gair burst out laughing and Aysha grinned. It crinkled her eyes up at the corners, giving them an exotic tilt. They really were the most startling blue.

Walking her hands up the rock behind her, she pushed herself to her feet. Gair jumped up to offer his arm, but she barely glanced at it until she was upright and dusting off her palms. She gave him an unfathomable look. ‘Manners maketh a man,’ she said. ‘Thank you, but I can manage.’

Then she turned and flashed into the form of a fire-eagle. A few sweeping wingbeats that kicked up sand around her and she was in the air. Gair followed close behind as they climbed up and out of the cove. Aysha circled once, then peeled off downwind, following the roll of the hills inland.

Now, Leahn, let’s see just how good you are
.

Masen tied his reins around the saddle-horn in a half-hitch, enough to keep them out of the way, quick to release if he had to. He could not afford to be held up, not even for a moment. Whistlers Pass was no place to be caught after dark.

He studied the sky. The westering sun was already out of sight behind the mountains and shadows crawled from behind the rocks onto the road below. In the height of summer it was possible to ride the length of the pass between dawn and dusk. This late in the year, there was simply not enough daylight. He had set out southeastwards before first light and ridden as hard as he dared, but a third of the journey still lay ahead and he would not even have the benefit of a moon. Miriel was barely new and would not rise high enough to clear the mountains; Lumiel would not rise at all until well past the time he might need her.

Damn his luck. The Goddess must surely be laughing at him, to send him through one of the most unquiet places on earth at the dark of the moon, with the Veil as threadbare as an old sock. All he could do was put his trust in fire, and his mare’s swift feet.

Masen picked up the two oil-soaked torches. He swung himself onto Brea’s back, then called fire to them. They caught quickly,
flames gyring in the shifting winds. Gripping a torch in each hand, he nudged the mare forward into the darkening pass. At least the road was good here. Grass and weeds had long since claimed the cobbles of the Kingsway, but the footing was firm enough for a gallop if he had to. He urged Brea from a walk to a trot and held the torches high as the last of the sunset faded from the sky like the heat from a cooling forge, leaving the heavens a glacial blue. It would be fully dark in less than an hour. Already he was unable to see much beyond the ruddy circle of light, but that could not be helped. Loss of his night vision was the price he had to pay for the security of the flames. Fire was the only thing the whistlers feared.

Keeping his own fear tightly in check, Masen pushed on, one mile, then two, then the road swung from its westward track back towards the east again, the fifth bend of the seven as it wound through the pass. Eight more miles and he would see the massive fortress of Brindling Fall rearing against the sky, blacker even than the night behind it. Two miles further to its gates, then he could start to relax. Down Roisin’s Stair into Arennor, make camp somewhere near the last milecastle on the Kingsway and get some sleep. He would need it. The Pass was hard on a man’s nerves.

A sudden gust of wind pushed him hard in the chest. The torch-flames snapped and showered his gloves with sparks. From somewhere behind him came a thin moan – wind between the rocks. The Brindling Mountains were sandstone, and millennia of weather had sculpted fantastic spires from them; the wind played them like a ragman’s flute. Nonetheless, Masen nudged Brea into a rolling canter.

The moan faded away to nothing, then returned, rising in pitch to a shriek.
Still just the wind
. The torches were good for another couple of hours, and he would be at the Fall by then. If he could keep this pace he had little to be concerned about.

Another mile passed under the mare’s hooves. The wind continued to rise and fall, changing direction in defiance of the way it should prevail, one minute tugging his cloak hard enough to
choke him, the next shoving him on his way. Brea flattened her ears in distaste and ran on.

Another mile. Outside the ruddy light of the torches the darkness was absolute. Chips of ice stung Masen’s face, and the chill bit through his gloves to gnaw at his fingers. Every breath smoked before the wind snatched it away.

After one more mile the dark gained a different texture as the walls of the pass steepened. It felt thicker, dense and heavy as sorrow. Anxiety tickled the pit of Masen’s stomach. If the whistlers were going to show themselves, they would do it soon.

Unearthly shapes loomed out of the dark either side of the road; sandstone spires as sharp as blades fretted the wind into a whine, wound it round narwhal horns and goblin chimneys until it squealed. Masen slowed Brea to a trot. The pass was narrowest here, the Whistlers twisting the road through their crooked fingers like a ribbon. Best to be cautious, unless he had no other choice.

Keening sounded from off to his left. Another answered it from up ahead, and trailed off into a giggle. Chilly fingers of dread slipped down Masen’s spine. The whistlers were abroad. More sounds from behind, audible even over Brea’s hoofbeats. They had a mocking tone, the way children chanted in the schoolyard. A burst of laughter from ahead was abruptly cut off, before sounding again on the other side of the road. Brea snorted and shook her head, slowing her pace. Masen squeezed against her ribs to push her on and raised the torches as high as he could.

Stay with us
.

A pale shape spiralled out of the night: pale as ash, pale as bones, too large to be a snowflake.

Why do you run?

Lower and lower it came, drifting as slowly as a falling feather, yet somehow speeding towards Masen like a stone from a sling. It whipped past over his head and he ducked instinctively.

Laughter pattered around him.
Don’t be afraid
.

Then it was gone, leaving just a memory of a breeze on his
cheek and the faint, cold odour of an ages-old grave. Another pale bloom in the dark, off to his left, then two more on his right. Masen tried not to look at them, instead keeping his eyes focused on the road unrolling before him between Brea’s ears, the frosty grasses gleaming in the torchlight.

Shall we sing for you? Yes, let’s sing. Sing sing sing sing sing sing yes let’s sing sing for you sing so sweet sing so sad sing to your soul sing for your soul sing you to sleep sleep dear one my dearest love sleep again to sleep once more so sad so sad so long asleep to sleep in silence silence deep so long asleep or shall we SCREAM?

A dozen voices howled. The sound stabbed at Masen’s ears as the pallid shades swooped around him. He crouched lower in the saddle and urged Brea faster. The mare’s mane whipped at his face and the icy night wind cut tears from his eyes. He could not afford to be caught there.

Hold fast!

Brea skidded to a halt scant yards from the warmly dressed warrior who stood in the road, a heavy war-spear levelled. Masen kept his seat with some difficulty as the mare pranced and tossed her head. She whinnied in panic, but he could soothe her only with words; his hands were full with the torches. He shushed her as best he could whilst watching the warrior. The man was tall, his long hair in braids adorned with feathers. Bronze cuffs adorned well-muscled arms, and a jewelled pin fastened his thick plaid cloak. Yet the plaid had a faded look, as if washed too often, and the man’s hair was colourless as spider-silk – an illusion of a man, no more real than the other whistlers, but real enough to startle poor Brea.

‘Go back to your rest,’ Masen called, a torch held forward. He urged the mare into a reluctant walk. ‘There is no battle here.’

Hold fast!
said the voice again. The spearman’s lips did not move.

‘And I said begone!’

With a breath of the Song Masen flicked a ball of flame from
the torch in the direction of the apparition. It raised its spear to knock it aside, then dissolved into smoke and snowflakes that were crushed under Brea’s hooves as she stepped over the place where the shade had been. It took only a little encouragement to bring her to a trot, though her ears flicked restlessly back and forth.

More snow fell, swirling thickly out of the night to hiss in the torch-flames. From behind came a renewed chorus of tomcat yowls, punctuated with shrieks of frustration more discordant than ever.

Spite! You spite us! Scorn us mock us spit on our song! We shall sing you another song a song of spears a song of tears a song of souls long gone gone to the dust a song of stones a song of bones break the bones break the spears that broke our bones break the spears and grind the bones into the stones that sow this land that once was ours this land we bought with blood and bones
.

The shades massed again, dozens of them now, drifting like clouds. He tried not to look at them directly, but there were too many to avoid. They swooped towards him with their gaunt faces and hollow eyes, their mouths stretched wide by too many sorrows, too many horrors. Here an army had died, almost an entire people, crushed between the hammer-strike of Endirion’s finest and the anvil of Brindling Fall, and even now it found no rest.

Three miles to the sixth bend and the end of the Whistlers. It was too much to ask of his mount, though she would gallop until her heart burst if he gave her his spurs. The Emperor’s racehorses could manage that distance flat out in the King’s Circle, but Brea was no racehorse, and it was dark and she carried heavy packs. What was needed now was steadiness – a burst of speed, to put some distance behind him, then steadiness. That was something that she had in abundance.

Masen set his heels to Brea’s ribs and tried to outrun the dead.

When the swooping cloud of revenants was eventually veiled in the snow, Masen slowed the mare with a word. She shook a crust
of snow off her face, her coat steaming, but her head was up. Masen checked his torches. They still burned, but not for much longer. He had maybe an hour’s flame left in them. He hoped it would be enough. There was still another two miles or more to go.

Brea plodded on, her hooves near-silent in the deepening drifts. Masen listened for the return of the whistlers. Each time the wind sighed through the rocky pillars that hedged the road he swung his head towards the source of the sound, thrusting out his torches, but there was nothing to see but snow. It swept across the pass from north to south, silent as the shiver of an angel’s wings. Cold pinched his ears with cruel fingers and his arms ached with holding the torches aloft. There was nothing to see but snow and rock and the smothering velvet night.

Treacher!

The voice sounded right behind him. Masen swung around, his heart beating a tattoo on his ribs.
Nothing
. Just more snow, glowing where it fell into the ruddy circle of the torchlight. Somewhere behind him the wind keened between the rocks and fell silent.
Nothing
. He turned back, shifting his numbed arse in the saddle.